Visually Communicating Artificial Urban Wetlands

Introduction Urban wetlands in Australia are under threat, yet they provide benefits for climate change mitigation, pollution reduction, habitat provision, and socioecological connection. In what is now known as Sydney’s inner south and inner west, wetlands were significant places maintained by Aboriginal peoples for millennia (Foster). The violent colonial history that shaped Sydney unfolded along its extensive and dynamic wetlands and connecting waterways. Water was enclosed, drained, dammed, and channelled underground to service the city’s growth. “Unproductive swamps” were filled in for factories and housing. Today, in an era of unprecedented urban growth, wetlands are making a comeback, with urban renewal projects incorporating artificial systems into water-sensitive urban design with shallow, densely planted ponds that help filter water through physical and biological processes. Artificial wetlands in densely populated areas are increasingly recognised for their effectiveness in reducing the runoff volume and the level of pollutants before stormwater enters urban creeks, rivers and oceans. They are “a key technology in the design of water-sensitive urban centres” (Fitzgerald 171). Although some Sydney wetlands are revered and protected without question, such as the Ramsar-listed Towra Point Nature Reserve, others are undervalued as urban ecologies. Green infrastructure such as wildlife corridors, verges, rain gardens, pocket parks, and artificial wetlands are not well understood as being both on Country and connected to infrastructure (pipes and drains), ecosystems (critters, plants, and groundwater) and leisure activities (pets, sports, walking, running, and being together). It has been pointed out that focussing on wetlands only as habitat for waterbirds or iconic species “creates an exclusionary environmental protection practice that can have adverse consequences for an ecosystem intrinsically connected to its surroundings, as wetlands are” (McDonald and Gillespie 3). In this article, we examine an artificial wetland at Sydney Park, adjacent to the Green Square urban renewal site. Through a visualisation method we call “photo diagramming” (Jones et al.), we ask the question: how might visual communication play a role in helping to make artificial wetlands more legible as socioecological systems? First, we offer a brief history of Sydney Park, also describing how the artificial wetlands were designed. Then, we introduce our photo diagram, which sho